A federal judge on January 9 approved and finalized the $1 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by UC Davis students and recent alumni who were pepper sprayed during a protest at the University in November 2011.

The federal class-action lawsuit resulted from the shocking and widely publicized incident in which the campus police repeatedly doused seated, non-violent student demonstrators with military grade pepper spray at close range during demonstrations on November 18, 2011.

Photos and videos of UC Davis Police Lieutenant John Pike pepper spraying the students became viral, drawing attention to the repression of the Occupy movement in the U.S. and to the outrageous tactics used to repress Occupy UC Davis in particular.

"Police should never have been called out to disperse the lawful protest against steep tuition increases, police brutality against UC Berkeley protesters, and privatization of the university," said Mark E. Merin, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs.

1. stunning. not nearly enough, and people should be in jail for this.

The pepper spraying of the students at UC Davis also takes place in the larger context of the nationally coordinated crackdown on the Occupy movement by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, local police departments and the banks themselves. "New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent," according to an article by Naomi Wolf in the U.K. Guardian on December 29 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy

"It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police," said Wolf. "The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves."

5. Great, we need more payouts like this for these criminals

We're getting harassed by local law enforcement on a facebook page for exposing their corruption. We would appreciate it if you guys would come over here and give us a hand with these guys. They're pissed. A new Press Release in the local rag is stating Police Chief Scott Burroughs, Port Aransas TX is threatening legal action against admins of anti-police corruption facebook page for exposing his department's illegal behaviors. Please support and "LIKE" our facebook page.